Machines such as, for example, on and off-highway haul trucks and other types of heavy equipment are used to perform a variety of tasks. Some of these tasks involve traversing road surfaces, which may be rendered unpredictable by weather, usage patterns, tectonic shifts, mud slides, rock slides, mining, or other deteriorative events and/or processes. Machines can traverse these road surfaces with help from operators. For example, operators of the machines may adjust speeds and/or steering angles of the machines in anticipation of or in response to unpredictable road surfaces. Machines are, however, becoming increasingly automated.
One way to automatically control a machine in anticipation of or in response to an unpredictable road surface is to prevent the machine from traversing the unpredictable road surface. An example of this strategy is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,313,758 (the '758 patent) issued to Kobayashi on Nov. 6, 2001. The '758 patent describes a control apparatus that allows processional travel with a leading vehicle driven by a driver and at least one succeeding vehicle automatically following the leading vehicle. Each of the vehicles comprises a communicator for communicating with other vehicles and a condition detector for detecting the condition of an object vehicle. Each of the vehicles also comprises an abnormality detecting device for determining the occurrence of an abnormality in the object vehicle, based on condition information detected by the condition detector. In addition, each of the vehicles comprises an abnormality signal transmitter for transmitting an abnormality signal, indicating the occurrence of an abnormality in the object vehicle, via the communicator. Additionally, each of the vehicles comprises an abnormality stop device for stopping the processional travel of at least one of the vehicles, including the vehicle that transmitted the abnormality signal, when the abnormality signal has been transmitted by one of the vehicles.
Although the control apparatus of the '758 patent may stop the processional travel of at least one of the vehicles of the '758 patent, the control apparatus does not modify a speed limit at a location where the abnormality occurred. Specifically, the control apparatus does not decrease the speed limit at the location where the abnormality occurred. Additionally, the control apparatus does not react to changing circumstances at the location where the abnormality occurred. In particular, the control apparatus does not resume normal operation of the vehicles at the location where the abnormality occurred.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the art.